The present invention relates to a disposable thermoplastic glove system suitable for use in the foodservice and food handling industries.
Disposable hand covers such as gloves and mitts are widely used in the food handling and service industries, as well as in other applications to provide protection for the user and to improve hygiene. Typically, disposable gloves and mitts are formed of two layers of thermoplastic film sealed around their periphery, forming a five finger glove or a multi-finger mitt. Gloves have separate and distinct portions for each finger, while mitts have one portion for the thumb and a single, separate portion for the other digits. An exemplary disposable mitt of this two-layered type and having a severable header is shown in Grinberg U.S. Pat. No. 5,806,099. For the purposes of the following disclosure, it is intended that the term glove includes mitts. Conventional methods of forming two ply disposable gloves or mitts are described in Bradfield U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,322.
In many applications, including the food handling and service industries, personnel don gloves and mitts very frequently. Typically, after a single or quite limited use, the disposable glove is discarded and a fresh glove is donned. Clearly, it is desirable that the disposable gloves be inexpensive and that the gloves be constructed and packaged such that they can be easily and quickly donned and replenished with a minimum effort and without contaminating or compromising the cleanliness of the freshly donned gloves. Known glove packaging arrangements for disposable gloves are shown in McLaughlin U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,293; Hoffrichter U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,682; and Klecena U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,741.
Disposable gloves may be held by so-called xe2x80x9cwickets,xe2x80x9d including wicket posts, hooks, and rings. Wickets are commonly used devices for enabling the easy dispensing of disposable items, e.g., sandwich and grocery bags and the like. Wickets generally consist of one or more spaced vertical rods or other structures which extend through holes formed in tear-off portions of the items being dispensed. In this manner, items are conveniently stored proximate a workstation by stacking them on the wickets for relatively easy selection and removal. The present invention in one embodiment comprises a stack of easily donned disposable gloves which may be conveniently mounted to wickets, where the wickets are attached to a support structure.
In an alternate embodiment, the present invention is a disposable glove system which comprises a specially configured glove cartridge assembly. A glove cartridge includes a stack of disposable gloves mounted on a portable planar support, which support conveniently forms a wall of a glove package (which package generally consists of a glove cartridge shrink wrapped with a plastic wrap or the like). The portable planar support may have wickets mounted thereon, to which the gloves are attached. The planar support may instead have other attachment means, such as tie straps, for holding the gloves thereon. The cartridge may be received and secured by a permanent or semi-permanent support structure in a convenient location for holding the gloves proximate a workstation. Once a cartridge is depleted, it is replaced with a fresh cartridge. Alternately, an entire stack of gloves may be initially separated from the cartridge and thereafter attached to wickets mounted on a separate support structure. The gloves may also be advantageously designed without severable headers, adding speed and convenience to the process of replenishing the gloves after a stack has been depleted. The planar support may instead comprise an integral wall of a parallel piped package which may be opened and closed, as required, for accessing and storing a supply of gloves. Whatever the specific embodiment of the present invention, it is an important object and principle of the invention that the top glove of the stack always be readily and easily donned and removed by a single, simple linear motion of only one hand of a user, i.e. by simply slipping a hand into the glove, while the other hand is not used.
The improved gloves of the present invention are two ply disposable gloves formed of juxtaposed relatively short front and relatively long back sheets of plastic film typically heat welded together around the peripheral edges thereof and forming a closed end with separate portions for each finger and an open end adjacent the wrist portion. At the open end of a glove, the longer back sheet extends beyond the shorter front sheet, forming a mounting section which has a pair of xe2x80x9ckey-holexe2x80x9d mounting holes therein suitable for receiving wickets therethrough. Each mounting section includes either perforations extending longitudinally from the holes to the rear edge portion of the back sheet, or a single perforation extending axially from side to side, positioned between the mounting holes and the open end of the glove. In the former embodiment, the severable header is eliminated because no portion of the mounting section remains about the wickets after the glove is removed.
The glove opening is designed to allow the entire hand of a user to be inserted quickly and easily between the two layers of plastic film. In particular, the extended mounting section of the back sheet is not overlayed by the top sheet, providing a bare inner surface of the back sheet against which a hand may be slid easily into the glove opening. Each of the front and back sheets is preferably advantageously fabricated of a material having little elasticity, such as polyethylene, causing the glove opening to open immediately and causing the front and back sheets to separate quickly from each other with little effort by a user upon donning the glove.
Additional features and attendant advantages of the new glove package will be apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.